One Day
by RandomGerman
Summary: One day she would find peace within herself. One day it wouldn't mean 'sorry' when her ex spoke her name. But before forgiveness can spread its gentle wings, the pain threatens to poison her. Can a Vampire of all People help her to heal? (Friendship Story, Rating for Leah's foul mouth)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This is my first one-shot, I'm really excited about it. Hope that you'll enjoy it!**

She had always been a girl who kept her worries to herself. She thought them over and over, maddening herself with them in the process. When she was worried she was sure that no one wanted to be in her head because worries would usually result in fits of self-loathing within hours.

One time she had worried that she wouldn't ever find a boyfriend. Her thoughts had chased each other in circles as she concluded that she was inadequate for any kind of relationship, let alone for anyone to love her. There were her parents, maybe even Seth. But weren't they somehow obligated to love her by the blood they shared? Her vile thoughts had debated for days whether her lack of a boyfriend was due to her being awkwardly tall or due to her dislike of exchanging meaningless pleasantries. Somehow, she wanted things to be about what really mattered and not about if it was going to rain later.

'_Duh, it's La Push! __It always rains here. So get over yourself and tell me what you want already!' _she wanted to shout at those people. Because few things mattered and these mattered so much that they deserved some attention. Love, friends, family- those were important.

She had lost them all. One day had changed her life. A myth had come to life.

When she fell in love with him she didn't expect him to love her back. No, she worried and worried that he would ignore her or fall in love with her gorgeous best friend Katie.

Surprisingly, he didn't.

She shared her mind, body and soul with him. He had been the first one to love her for who she truly was. He had gazed past her looks and discovered her inner beauty.

If you had asked him, he would've told you about her qualities: That she was the most affectionate, beautiful, intelligent and modest girl he knows and that he loves everything about her- inside and out. He still thought that she was beautiful, even now. But fate had made him change the words to 'second most'.

And second best she felt.

Why couldn't she be his fate, his matching puzzle piece? She had shown him her soul and he had chosen to quite loving her. Technically, he hadn't ever chosen to love the other girl. But still she felt rejected and unworthy. Maybe that was the worst part of it. Of course she knew that most teenage-relationships didn't last 'till marriage. That was a stupid cliché- reserved for dreamy pale girls like the bloodsucker's mate.

If their relationship had ended in any other way and under other circumstances, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. But as it was, she had fallen into a bottomless pit when he saw the other girl. She was still struggling to climb out of it.

Because it hurt- a lot.

She had been there the day that he had imprinted on the other girl. That's right, imprinted, like some stupid bird. He had been drawn away from one second to the other. One- he had been madly in love with her. Blink- Two- he wanted to marry the other girl and spend the rest of forever to make the other girl happy.

Three- he did.

What made it worse was that she felt unable to hate them. The other girl had been family to her and a close friend. He had been her everything. It had hurt like hell- not only a sting of rejection, but rather a slicing pain only comparable to dieing.

But within.

She had seen their happiness, their gooey eyes, the mutual attraction. She had felt the perfect love between them. And that is why she just couldn't bring herself to loathe them. Hate would make the pain easier. At least she'd have someone else to blame but herself.

But she didn't.

So she blamed herself. It had been her all along: She wasn't worth any love. She had lost him, she had killed her father. She was a murderer, no matter what the others did say. The first female freak in the reservation and the legends. She had scared her father to death with her mutant nature. Maybe that was what she was- a mutant.

Imprinting was supposed to complete people. It was supposed to ensure strong offspring. Why couldn't he have imprinted on her? She answered this question for herself. She probably had bad genes and wouldn't ever have kids. That thought often made her cry. Because if she was good enough, he would've chosen her, not the other girl. Her cousin.

Because she wasn't good enough

Had she just been fate's slave? Only existing so that the other girl would one day meet him? What was her point in living, anyways? Try as she might, she didn't know what she was living for. There was no one that she could pass her knowledge or love onto. All was gone. Robbed by creatures that were to live in the world of fairy tales. Vampires.

They were the cause of all the changes, she had tried to convince herself. She had to hate them and she pretended to. But she had never been the one to hate others or even circumstances. She feared war and she didn't understand how others could cause such despair and violence. Yet she didn't hate it, as she didn't hate the bloodsuckers.

She kept up the pretence, though.

While she blamed them on the outside, she hated herself inside. Like a hurt animal she snapped at all glances of happiness and buried herself in self-loathing. She didn't have friends because no one liked her, she thought. The truth was that people loved her despite her harsh behavior and occasional rudeness. Because she still shone underneath the hurt.

She had lost him because she was a genetic dead end and not desirable at all. Fate had just discovered its mistake. Maybe it had had her mixed up with the other girl, she told herself.

She didn't want the others to know these thoughts. She had to be strong, at least for his sake. She couldn't let her feelings escape her because she knew that he still loved her. When they went wolf she could feel his love and the sorry vibes coming off of him. He still loved her and it hurt her. It hurt that they couldn't ever be. She was second best.

Their love wasn't enough anymore.

Sometimes, she felt like fate just hated her. She imagined a beautiful blond girl- she always was blond for some reason- sitting in a tree and throwing rocks at her laughing.

Beautiful was cruel fate.

In these moments she could only find comfort in prayer. That is when peace was in her heart and love for the beauty that surrounded her. Nature was rich and other people had had worse than her. After all, she still had her brother and her Mom. She also had her alpha- though he wasn't ever really paying attention to her since he had imprinted. How she wished imprinting didn't exist! It didn't belong into the green beauty of earth or into the gray concrete world that was human. It had been good to her alpha, though.

Somehow she knew that she wouldn't ever imprint. It couldn't be this easy for her. She had to heal the hard way. She knew that she would, though.

One day the gashes in her heart would be closed and she would be able to look at him without feeling herself tear open.

One day, all would be well. Well enough for her to truly live again. In her heart of hearts she knew that she wasn't to blame, that no one was. She would really know it then.

One day she would find peace within herself. She would learn to accept and love herself and embrace her wolf. She would let her love shine out of her heart. They would see her for what she really was inside- scarred, but beautiful.

One day she would hear him say her name and be happy for him. And he would eventually look at her without the bottomless sadness in his eyes and leave the past behind.

One day it wouldn't mean 'sorry' when he spoke her name.

"Leah."

…

**Please tell me what you think!**

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	2. Chapter 2

**After an awful lot of thinking on this, I decided to expand my one-shot a little. Here it is, enjoy!**

"Leah." The voice said again, a little louder, but still softly. She looked up to see honey-colored eyes looking at her with a worried expression from a less than safe distance. Scrambling and caught off-guard, she hurried to get off of the dirty log she had been sitting on to get further away from him. How could she have let him come so close without noticing the awful smell that always surrounded them? He was one of the vampires that deemed the house close to the reservation their family home.

He chuckled as she almost immediately leaped away from his crouched form. "I always pictured you a better warrior. I could have killed you five times over and you wouldn't even have seen it coming. "

She brought the moss-covered log between them and came to a halt. Her eyes were spitting fire and her mouth wasn't too far behind with spewing insults. "Shut the hell up, leech! What do you know about my life! Come here to goad me like the rest of them, didn't you?"

His eyes turned hard at hearing her say that. "I am nothing like the rest of them. You shouldn't ever underestimate me, girl." He gave a low growl of warning when she opened her mouth to retort and finished. "I could crush you under my thumb if I wanted to"

This felt good to her, it felt safe. Arguing was her preferred method of venting off the frustration. And oddly enough, she knew that this particular fight in-the-making would help her more than it would hurt her. Well, at least she hoped it would. She had been wrong before.

"I don't even know who you are, leech!" she spit out. "And don't try to tell me because I frankly don't care at all. So you deem yourself a warrior, then?" She gave a goading laugh, trying to rile her opponent up. He seemed more likely to lose control than the others if his by now angry facial expression was anything to go by.

"Tell me, Leah, what a warrior is to you." he ground out, but didn't let her answer. "Strong, determined, realistic and ON THEIR GUARD! How could you ever call yourself even a lap dog if you sit around here wasting away because life is unfair?"

Now she had had just about enough. "I'll give you lap dog, Dracula!" she yelled as she launched herself at him, transforming in midair into a big, hairy and very angry wolf. But he had prepared himself for the attack and simply jumped up, catching her around her neck in midair and using her momentum to throw her on her back. He placed his teeth at her neck and barely grazed the skin there to show that he could have killed her. Meanwhile he restrained her body by simply pressing her down with his body weight. "Do you give up, puppy?" he asked her aggressively as he sat down with one hand at her throat. She growled and snapped at him, but to no avail. "I said, do you give up?"

Instead of answering him, she transformed back into her human form. But he didn't even blink at the fact that she was now very much naked underneath him and closed his hand tighter around her now smaller neck. "Don't even try going there. It won't work" he said warningly. But she didn't heed his warning as she transformed back to wolf form and renewed her efforts to escape his grasp. The sudden change in size had given her an advantage. It proved to be futile though when the vampire still on top of her simply adjusted his hold on her throat.

Finally, and hating every nanosecond of it, she gave an almost imperceptible nod. He released his hold on her and jumped back from her body. As she got up from the ground she glared at him angrily, her wolf eyes filled with electricity.

"A warrior should know better than to let her anger overtake her, don't you agree?" he calmly asked the still fuming woman. She only growled in response. "I'll make you a deal, just for the fun of it. If you manage to defeat me just once, I'll never call you puppy again. How do you like 'princess Leija'?"

Again, she lunged for him, this time anticipating his response to her direct attack. She feigned to go for his throat, but snapped at his side instead. Before she realized what exactly had happened, she found herself on the ground again. Like the time before, he punctured her skin with his teeth before forcing her to surrender to him.

As he jumped back, he taunted "I was so sure you could do better, princess. I'm disappointed in your lack of self-control. I dare you to fight me in human form, without growing a single hair out of place. Or are you scared of getting crushed?"

She scowled at him, but turned back anyways. Her pride wouldn't let her do anything else. It was all she had left right now as she stood naked and without blushing in front of him. "I'm not as breakable as that puny human that your brother insists on dragging around with him. So you'd better not hold back!"

She tried to find the calm in her soul to remain in her human form as tremors ran over her skin. He chuckled. "You bet I won't." Then he opened his belt-buckle, slipped out of his shorts and threw them at her head. Apparently her nudity did bother him more than he let on.

She glared at him for good measure and finally put the pants on as another piece of clothing hit her head. It was his t-shirt. She sniffed it before wrinkling her nose and begrudgingly putting it on.

"You better launder that twice before returning it. Or better yet, burn it. By the way, I don't think you have it in you to ever overpower me." he told her, now only in his boxer-shorts and a wife-beater.

"You are such an asshole!" she countered.

"Wow, your arguments are reaching fifth-grade level. Way to expand your vocabulary!" he drily replied. "I'm not going to fight with you anymore today; that will have to wait. I expect you don't want to have to go home naked, do you? Seeing as you will get angry again and burst them."

"What do you care?" she only asked, only to attack him a third time, this time in human form. Still, she was faster and much stronger than any human ever should be. He pinned her to the forest floor after 1.04 seconds. The fourth time he humored her for all of ten seconds, pretending to avoid her hits, before she found herself sprawled once again. But she didn't go wolf on him, keeping a tight grasp on what was left of her self-control and sanity.

"Same time, same place tomorrow?" he asked her with a smirk as he turned and left her on the ground without waiting for her answer. She would be there tomorrow and every day after that only to prove him wrong. Until one day she finally would.

One day she would learn to control the rage and self-hatred burning her up from the inside and grow into the mighty and destructive warrior he had already glimpsed in her.

One day she would know to thank him for what he had done for her.

"Jasper"

**Always thankful for reviews! ;-)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey, this is RandomGerman. Enjoy the newest chapter! I forgot the disclaimer with the other chapters, so here it is for all the chapters: I don't own Twilight or any other publicly recognizable characters or enterprises.**

„Jasper" she simply told him when he returned from the forest with only half the clothing on with which he had left. He felt the emotions swirling around her. Guilt, confusion, love, worry and a tinge of curiosity.

He shook his head at the woman who considered herself his mother. Even her compassion wouldn't, couldn't get him to talk about what had happened. She only sighed and returned to the house as she had the last few weeks. She could only hope that he'd learn to open up one day.

But he was perfectly content with not telling any of the perfectly composed vampires about what was torturing him inside. Their emotions and their calm exterior had worn him out. There was no way he could open up to any of them, the pain would cripple them. His only option was bottling it up until he felt like he might explode. There wasn't a proper vent for his anguish. Destroying things only helped so much and left him with only more guilt and pity around him. How does one release anger on someone who pities you? He had felt like picking a fight when he had stalked off the property a few hours prior and he had gotten his wish.

And oddly enough, he felt some resemblance of calm on the inside. If his nosy brother found out the reason, he would surely be angry and disappointed. But never disappointed enough to hit him.

He had flitted through the thick vegetation of the forest surrounding the reservation close by, only led by his radar for emotions to keep away from any sickeningly happy or familiar canine emotions. He wasn't keen on dying or killing anyone today.

Like a magnet the darkness of her emotions had drawn him closer as soon as she appeared as a tiny angry blob on his mental map of the forest. It was rather fascinating how much anger she was feeling at anyone and anything around him. Expecting her to notice him soon, he crouched down and kept approaching her, now almost in her line of sight.

Still she didn't look up. Her anger swirled around her spiced by tiny slivers of hope and sadness. Only when he was so close that he could have killed her easily she startled and got away from him. Suddenly he found all her anger directed at him.

Without knowing why exactly he was doing it, he started baiting her anger, waiting for her to explode. And she did explode into a hairy ball of stinking fur that attacked him with blind rage. Again and again he had made her try to overpower him and again and again he had pressed her body to the floor. It had felt strangely satisfying to let out some of the aggression he had stored inside, if only in a controlled way. If only he could get her to fight him again, he could mold her into a worthy opponent and potent stress-reliever. He didn't think that she would mind being his living punching bag. Much.

Though she continued to glare daggers at his retreating back, her anger was more ordered then, more controlled. He really hoped he would get her to attack him again. _They_ had never let him fight with them, too afraid of the damage it might do.

Trying to avoid the happy couples inside the house that used to be as close to a home to him as anything could ever be, he passed it by and entered the forest once again. He kicked off his shoes and raced up the nearest tree. If he weren't too fast and too big, one could have almost mistaken him for an albino squirrel. Jumping from branch to branch and swinging even higher up, he fought to get away from the house. Finally he crouched down on a wider branch near the top of a pine tree in the middle of the forest. As looked towards the setting sun, unblinking and unseeing, he questioned his sanity for the 216th time in two weeks.

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"It's a shame you are going to ruin them" he told her with a glance at her pants. She was clothed more fitting for a battle this time. "I'm not surprised you forgot to bring a change of clothes, princess. But I thought of it for you" he laughed as he threw an old sundress at her. He didn't let his thoughts linger on the origin of said dress, but watched her reaction.

"As if I can't control myself!" she shot back at him as she deflected the garment, her anger already spiking.

"Well you can't" was his only answer at first. Then he added "Either you go wolf now or you don't at all. Your anger makes your thoughts so hazy that you fight like a crazed newborn. If you can't control your emotions you're not worthy of sparring with me."

"Oh, but you are such a ray of sunshine, aren't you, pot?" she smiled at him triumphantly when she saw him flinch slightly at her guess into the blue. She really had him there, but he tried not to let on that she had hit a nerve.

"Phase or not phase, that is the question" he shot back in a clipped tone.

"I won't." she replied and tied back her hair. Even from a distance he could see the red spots where he had set his teeth yesterday. He was itching to put more there today.

Composing herself briefly she got down in a crouch and the battle began.

When they both felt tired and it was beginning to get chilly, she had ten more sets of teeth marks on her neck. But to her immense pride, she had gotten some nasty scratches in on his arms.

"Give me a month and I'll have you squashed to the floor, leech!" she shot at him.

"You know that is not my name, princess" he answered.

"I know. And I'm not a princess, _ Jasper!"_ For a wolf she sure knew how to put venom into her words.

"Well, we'll see if you can earn my respect enough to be called by your name, _Leah!_" he answered her in the same tone of voice. He had to repress a shadow of a smile at her antics.

"See you on Saturday then for a repeat of your epic defeat today, princess!" he said as he hopped over the log and once again disappeared into the ferns and trees.

Only when he was safely out of hearing range he allowed himself to whisper.

"Leah"

**I'd love to know how you like my experiment so far. Maybe I'll incorporate it into my other story in the future or expand it of itself. A ver…**

**I'm still looking for a beta (or again) and am thinking of publishing some stories in Spanish or even German as an experiment. Any thoughts?**


	4. Chapter 4

**Very very very happy to have found a new beta in Cinderfire16! **

**And now without further ado, the next chapter:**

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The first time her teeth grazed his skin for the briefest of movements, she felt elation like she hadn't in over a year. Not since _he _broke her heart. With a triumphant smile on her lips she only registered his upper body twisting under her and turning them around when it was too late and she once again kissed the warm earth.

"You should never get too over-confident. Only let yourself taste the victory when it is really yours." he remarked while she indignantly spit out some pine needles.

As she got off of the soft earth and tried to clean her dusty sweatpants, she couldn't help the surge of irrational anger bursting through her, and she struggled to control it. Her remarkable success in not phasing in front of the blood-sucker was still astonishing even to her. Her pride wouldn't allow for her to lose her cool with him. He was already more than over-confident in his victory (if you asked her) and his advice was more often than not actually helpful, if not a bit condescending.

"You have to admit that I could have done a lot of damage back there if I had wanted to. And this is the twelfth time I wear this pair of pants without ripping them, blood-sucker!" she told him more level-headedly than she would have ever thought herself capable of before their regular meetings for a bit of sparring, if you wanted to call it that.

"Since when do you need my appreciation?" he asked her in a teasing manner. "I don't recall you ever praising my skills, princess." Secretly he was more than pleased with her progress. Even more in regards to her emotions than to her fighting skills. He wasn't doing this to help her out, though, he told himself. He had never been good to anyone or for anyone in any sense of the word.

The regular outlet and workout helped him cope with his reality somehow. Why the shape-shifter could achieve what his year-long acquaintances hadn't been fit to do was beyond him, though, and he refused to dwell on it too much.

She was speechless for a moment before she could form a somewhat appropriate response. "Everyone needs to hear they are on the right path sometimes." she only replied. "I bet even you can't live without a bit of an appreciative smile or a thank-you now and then, Mr. Super-warrior."

"I'll take that as a compliment" he said, barely suppressing a smile. "And yes, you could have killed me if you had really wanted to. But I don't think you really want to off me anymore, do you? That would imply that I couldn't turn up here the next time."

His words caught her off-guard. He had assessed her feelings on the matter quite correctly. She hadn't thought about killing him then, only besting him so she could gloat about it later. Not for the first time since he had stalked up to her in this very same forest she felt very off-kilter. She adapted a slightly defensive pose at his words, unconsciously crossing her arms in front of her.

"Whatever makes you sleep at night." she lightly said instead of publicly acknowledging his statement as true. She unlocked her arms and jumped from one foot to another before smugly asking him: "Are you ready for your imminent defeat?"

"As ready as I'll ever be" he shot back without correcting her. He was too happy with feeling her joy bubble and then calm down to a back-ground fizzle to make her angry. He would point out later that she had never had a snowflake's chance in hell against him.

His face was sporting a smile when she began dancing around him, trying to spot an opening in his defenses.

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"What were you thinking about that first day?" he casually asked her as he held her down to the floor. His tone was almost too casual, which meant that he really was interested in the answer. Somehow, she had learnt to translate his little gestures and the things unsaid into clues of his true intentions and emotions.

She sighed and looked up at the leaves above her that were starting to change color. The pine trees wouldn't lose their needles, but the first yellow crumpled pieces of tree were gathering on the ground.

"Would you maybe be so kind to release me from the death-grip you have on my throat? It's easier to answer when you don't pretend to be killing me" she snapped at him, but her emotions betrayed that she wasn't really angry, merely pensive and conflicted.

He leaped back from her in an instant and sat down on the log nearby.

While she pushed herself up into a sitting position and crossed her legs Indian style she contemplated his question and what answering it would imply. She didn't know if it would be a good idea to talk about the past with him. What had happened was personal, and had hurt her up to the basest layer of her being. It would mean that she willingly gave a blood-sucker her trust. She spoke the next words aloud:

"I suppose I already gave you my trust without realizing it when I believed without saying that you wouldn't kill me. But I am still only willing to trade information. I show you mine, you show me yours."

She flashed him a triumphant smile. "There has to be a reason why you all of a sudden spend time here in the forest and with one of our kind, too. I bet the mind-reader hates you now."

For a moment he looked like a deer caught in the headlights. He had (incorrectly) thought that his ability as an empathy would give him an advantage over her. But her assessment of his personal situation had been uncannily spot-on. Maybe even closer to home than he was with his own assumptions about her.

"Well, I guess that is only fair" he had to concede while he still wracked his brain on how to extract the information about the girl that had him curious with minimal collateral damage on himself. Why was it that he could relate to her so? She had never trusted him with her secrets, only with her health and life. What an unusual way to treat someone… Usually you trusted someone first with your secrets and then with your life. They were doing everything in the wrong order. But in theory the very idea of their meetings in the forest was outrageous and wrong in and of itself.

"But you will have to start because I asked you first" he tagged on.

"Okay. You get one question the next time we see each other and I will answer you truthfully. You just can't ask that one. I will not talk with you about the cause of my emotions that day. I'm pretty sure you will know if I lie with your freaky super-powers, right?" he nodded in affirmation.

"In return I get to ask you one question as well about anything at all."

When he started to protest against her – in his opinion – unfair conditions (why should she be allowed to veto one topic and he wasn't allowed to?), she cut him off with an impatient gesture.

"I won't know if you tell me the truth or if you are hiding an aspect of the story. Take it or leave it" she offered him.

Slowly, even for a vampire, he rolled his head from one shoulder to the other in contemplation and then gave a miniscule nod in slow-motion. If it weren't for her heightened wolf senses, she would not have been able to perceive it.

Elated over her victory, she jumped to her feet and offered him her hand. "Shake on it?'

And he did, giving her an almost hesitant smile that soon turned predatory as he seemed to realize something.

"So, I get to ask you _everything _else? Great!" he exclaimed and shook her hand harder. Maybe agreeing to this had not been her best idea. Now she was honor-bound to spill her secrets to the not-really-an-enemy-anymore that called her princess and belittled her fighting technique. And he was such a smug bastard sometimes! The sweetest revenge could only be forcing him into an emotional strip-tease as well.

Maybe this could help her finally overthrow him. And maybe, just maybe, it would be right to share her story with someone after all this time. She couldn't be alone forever, could she?

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**I hope this fulfilled everyone's expectations and answered some open questions. Their friendship is starting to come around the bend, finally.**

**Remember, reviews make me thrive and thrill - and maybe even write faster! (They won't cure me from my university workload, though, which is very unfortunate).**


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